MOSTLY MAJOR CHORDS TRANSCRIPT (049)
ALANA MORALES: Hey there! This is Alana Morales and you are at the Point of Learning with my dear friend Peter Horn. I have been a fan of Shayfer James’s work since I first heard him sing “Mostly Major Chords” at Peter’s living room piano so many years ago. In fact, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing a few live concerts from Shayfer and Peter. From then on, I’ve admired Shayfer as an artist and as a lyricist. Let’s listen to the inside scoop of his creative process together. Enjoy the show!
[00:43]
PETER HORN [voiceover]: On today’s show, the singer-songwriter who wrote this music!
SHAYFER JAMES: I think that songwriting is how I learn about myself.
[VO]: Shayfer James shares some of what he’s learned so far.
SHAYFER: And I would never stop doing it if everybody who listened went away, because it’s part of my learning process, like how I learned to be better at being a person, how I learned to communicate, and share my feelings outside of the creative space.
[VO]: Shayfer reflects on a few ingredients he uses to make what he does.
SHAYFER: It is different every time, and also through stages of my creative life. At the beginning, really, it was all words first. It was really like writing poems in a journal, and then the music would come. And then it became sort of the simultaneous thing. And then I would say, I think I’ve found my actual real process.
[VO]: All that, and much more, from classroom to stage to learning wherever he’s at, right here and now! Saddle up, because we’re off to the races with Shayfer James!
[01:57]
[VO]: If you’ve listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you’re already familiar with the music of Shayfer James. Shayfer’s songs “Weight of the World” and “Villainous Thing” have opened and closed nearly every episode since I started this podcast passion project in 2017. That year was already 20 years after I first met Shayfer as my student in English IV in the fall of 1997, and several years into a cherished friendship where he has many times been my teacher. As an artist, he has made a name for himself in the world of what is generally classified by Apple Music as indie rock, although some music critics apply the description “pop-noir” as they reckon with the darkness in some of his lyrics. His music is wide-ranging in style and color, so it’s hard to pigeonhole, but I agree with the reviewers who describe it as “captivating,” sometimes “swaggering,” and “moving,” “with a hint of mystery and surprise.” Shayfer has composed somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 songs over the past decade and a half … or about 4 hours of music on Spotify, where each month he currently engages over a quarter-million listeners who stream his songs over one and a half million times per month. His music is very popular on YouTube as well, to say nothing of the endless remixes that his fans create over on TikTok. Shayfer is a creator whose resume also includes film scores and a new musical based on the ancient epic of Beowulf—that project is called The Ninth Hour, co-created with Kate Douglas. I’ll have links for you to connect to his music in the show notes for this episode if you’d like to getter better acquainted with his work. If you want a quick index of how much his music means to me, I can tell you that tracking the viola part for the song you’re hearing right now was the last commitment of any kind I made in New Jersey, where I had lived for 25 years, before moving back to Buffalo in 2018. This song is called “Crack a Bottle, Run a Bath,” which would be easier to tell if this weren’t just the instrumental version and you could hear Shayfer’s lyrics. Anyway, Robyn’s and my stuff was boxed up and waiting for the moving van in Plainfield, and I drove over to Jersey City to record viola for this song. Sure, I’m also implying that I’m a reliable friend, but my real point is that if it’s at all possible, I would never not play something Shayfer James asks me to play. I’ve played music for going on 50 years at this point, and I’ve had the chance to play with some extraordinary musicians in venues around the world, and if I had to list the very brightest musical highlights from my life, more than half would involve playing music with this man. It’s not just his creative genius, his fearless piano playing, or his hauntingly beautiful voice; he’s also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and he surrounds himself with other artists who are a joy to collaborate with. As you’ll hear in the conversation that follows, I’ve seen Shayfer in different contexts—from overhearing fans at his shows tell him how much his music means to them to watching him interact as a co-teacher with my own students. I’ve witnessed him captivate and engage all kinds of audiences, which is another reason I’m excited to finally feature him as a guest on this podcast that he’s supported from before Day One as a way to share good ideas about what and how and why we learn. Heads up that we get just the tiniest bit salty towards the end of our conversation, with maybe two un-bleeped curse words in the last segment. They’re nothing saltier than you’d hear in a former president’s description of the legal charges facing him later this month in New York City, but really, what kind of standard is that? We’re about to get into the conversation we recorded in Shayfer’s home studio in Jersey City in early March 2024. But before that, I’d like to let the singer-songwriter himself handle the last bit of bio. Here’s his song called “God Forbids,” which Shayfer sometimes describes as his 3-minute autobiography.
[06:30. “God Forbids” from AMERICANACHRONISM (2021) EP by Shayfer James]
Grandpa fought in Germany
And Daddy was a spy
Mother made a home for me
And taught me not to lie
My brothers and my sisters
Became Christians and had kids
And I been out here doin'
All the things that God forbids
Yeah I been out here doin'
All the things that God forbids
Oh I thought about the army
When the towers tumbled down
I tried to be a husband
And I died in Chinatown
They say there's calm for everyone
I'm pretty sure there is
I'll find it while I'm doin'
All the things that God forbids
I'll find it while I'm doin'
All the things that God forbid
Oh I've nevеr heard a promise
That I honestly bеlieved
So I haven't found a lover
That I couldn't learn to leave
But I'm tryin' not to worry
And I'm easy to forgive
So I'll be out here doin'
All the things that God forbids
Yeah I'll be out here doin'
All the things that God forbids
Now I'm late for every party
But I'm grateful for my friends
Cause I know they'll spread my ashes
On the Ocean when it ends
So sing with me in revelry
For how the heathen lives
And I'll be out here doin'
All the things that God forbids
Cause I been out here doin'
All the things that God forbids
I'll find it while I'm doin'
All the things that God forbids
[09:01]
PETER: It’s so good to be able to talk to you, especially looking toward the milestone of 50 episodes, you’ve been such a supporter of the Point of Learning project from the very beginning, encouraging me to go forward and do something with it. Of course, your music features on the show, and you’ve always been a resource for me, in terms of trying to make it sound as good as possible, giving me tips. I thought it was appropriate at this juncture to sit down and talk with you about learning in the context of the music that you make. It’s true that I really don't think of you this way anymore—that is to say, as my former student—except when I want to brag on you and kind of imply that I may have had something to do with it, but I never go that far! But it wasn't just the first year I was teaching; it was actually the first class that I taught as a teacher: Period 3 [English IV] in the fall of 1997. It was the very first class that I taught. And so it might be interesting if there's anything that you recall. I recall a couple of things from that year, but is there anything that you recall from my first year as a teacher?
SHAYFER: Oh yeah. Well firstly, I was an easily distracted student, especially at that point, toward the end of high school. And I often found lessons to be boring. I found school to be pretty boring.
PETER: Why am I just finding this out?
SHAYFER: But I remember walking in—I don't know if it was the first day, but you had the lyrics to “Hotel California” by The Eagles on the blackboard. And, you know, we played the song—you often did this, where we would sort of do like these brief, I guess, lyric analyses—at the beginning of class, or once a week—I don't remember exactly what the format was, or how often it happened. But I was so interested in that. And you seemed cool and hip, you know, you were a hip young teacher, you had a bowtie—
PETER: Yeah, so cool I had a bowtie! Those were my “Tucker [Carlson]” days!
SHAYFER: And immediately—the way you spoke to us, I think, succinctly and with respect, you know, and not so much like I’m your teacher and this is the lesson, but more conversational. That struck me, and it really quickly became my favorite class. And I would say, looking back at my high school experience, my favorite class, in that period of my education. You know, I liked music class, I liked drama class. But again, I don’t know that I was always really super in it, you know? I was that C student that just sort of coasted by and really, you know, should have done more maybe, but I really didn’t feel compelled to most of the time.
PETER: And so this was senior year English for you, English IV, what I remember is that when we were doing Hamlet and I gave the option—and as you mentioned, you were in drama class; you were in the fall drama, the spring musical, you were active in the drama program—but when I gave options for what people could do, most people chose like a little portion of a scene with one or two other people. You were the only person who chose to do a monologue.
SHAYFER: I didn't know that!
PETER: Do you remember what that monologue was?
SHAYFER: It was the big one!
PETER: “To be or not to be”! I was like, This guy! This guy right here! You know, you were like, Well, I’ll just go ahead and learn that. And it was really good, as I recall.
SHAYFER: I remember I had like a fake knife, if I recall—
PETER: It was a “bare bodkin,” sir. [Reference to Hamlet (3.1) “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time/ … /When he himself might his quietus make/ With a bare bodkin?”] That was before they outlawed bodkins in the public schools.
SHAYFER: And I remember making that part of the monologue.
PETER: Maybe that’s why I was encouraged to give a good grade! You did have a weapon. “That was excellent!” But yeah, you were taking some risks. In the years since, of course, part of the delight—you know, I think I already referred to that you’ve taught me a little tiny fraction of all that you understand about audio engineering, and so the things that sound good about this podcast are in no small measure to the things that you have taught me. (And when it falls short of that mark, that’s me doing it on my own!) But in addition to that way that you’ve taught me, you know, I've brought you in as a Musician in Residence, and so we actually had the opportunity to co-teach students in Project ’79 [the alternative high school program where I was teaching]. We did it in different formats, like sometimes you were there for the better part of a week, or sometimes you did like weekly visits for a month or, you know, but to have a real working singer-songwriter, making songs with students … I remember starting out with drum circles in some cases, and you know, the song-writing was never attached to any kind of grade, and we let kids kind of come in as they were, as they expressed more or less interest. But with the music and lyrics creation, just presenting the idea that songwriting could be available to them, even if they didn't consider themselves a musician or certainly a songwriter already—that they could do it! So that was beautiful for me to have that experience, and of course, I always learned a great deal working alongside you. Do you have any thoughts or reflections about any of those residencies?
SHAYFER: Yeah, I remember being really nervous that these kids were going to hate it, or, you know, not show up. Or even be—I don’t know—rude! I had no idea what to expect. I remember being excited do it, but scared to do it. And we did start with a drum circle, and we built the song on rhythm. [Audio: example of drum circle.] And that felt like the right thing to do with people who had maybe never tried to write songs before, because that rhythm is natural. I remember saying that like, for natural rhythm, maybe I started with like the beat of your heart, right?
PETER: Oh yeah! Heartbeat!
SHAYFER: There’s a natural rhythm there. And that's how we started.
[16:00]
[VO]: What I was thinking when Shayfer made this point was a fact about normal heartbeats—lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub—that I often made to students but I thought at the time that it was a little too nerdy to inject into our conversation right then. As I think about it now, it’s exactly nerdy enough for the Point of Learning audience! The normal heartbeat is an iamb, that same unstressed-stressed building block of Shakespeare’s famous iambic pentameter that probably makes the rhythm feel more or less natural to people. “To be or not to be”: lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. “You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!” [Julius Caesar 1.1] Pretty cool, right? See now this here is why God invented voiceover!
SHAYFER: And I remember, like when I did it the one day and then when I came back, there were more students there. There was a little bit of chatter, and some more folks showed up.
PETER: Word had spread!
SHAYFER: Yeah, and it became really exciting and something I really looked forward to, and I think they looked forward to the collaboration with people that really started off not speaking the creative language that I was speaking in, and ending it with the songs that we ended up with. We actually did—what was it? I think it was two songs, right? Two or three?
PETER: It was different in different years, but there was one year that I feel like the two classes you worked with each cut and recorded—I mean you helped to bring the thing to completion, but I mean, like, there were discs, you know, with their songs on them. That was pretty cool!
SHAYFER: Yeah, I just remember it being exciting. And I think I learned about the process of songwriting by teaching it in some way, so pretty awesome!
PETER: Yeah, it’s one of those bromides that if you really want to understand something, try and teach it—or try and explain it really well, but that’s, of course, a facet of teaching. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never met a good teacher who wasn’t nervous, at least going in the first time. You know, people who do it for decades and decades—that night in September or August, whatever it is before your first class is usually a period where you're like, “Ah! How’s it gonna be with these kids?” But you were a natural, and then, you know, the kids understandably gravitated towards you.
[18:54. From one of these student-composed songs, “We Are Not To Blame” (2011)]
Your war is not my problem
We are not to blame
I'm weak but I'll recover
Do you have no shame?
Your struggle ain’t my world
I make my own sky blue
Your freedom flag unfurled
This cannot all be true
We are not to blame
We are all the same
[19:29]
[VO]: That was some of “We Are Not to Blame,” composed by the juniors of my Period 5 English III class in the spring of 2011. My kids asked Shayfer to sing the lead vocal part, but they wrote the lyrics, they created the percussion track, and a few stepped forward to record backup vocals. Almost none of them thought of themselves as a musician before Shayfer’s residency. By the end of it, they’d made a song!
PETER: It was about that time, it was during one of those residencies, I think, that you also—and I forget what platform you were doing it on: I don’t know if it was Snapchat or whatever it was, but you were kind of doing a challenge to write a song every day? Or every week? Something like that. But you were asking for suggestions from people?
SHAYFER: Yeah, it was on Facebook.
PETER: Oh, just on Facebook.
SHAYFER: And then I would post the videos to YouTube.
PETER: Right. And you got a suggestion for “love and time travel” from just a fan or somebody who read that post and was like, write a song about this.
SHAYFER: Yeah.
PETER: And I feel like it took you, in this case—this is not necessarily typical—but in this case, it took you like 30 minutes. It just kind of came out, and it’s one of my favorite songs. It’s called “Mostly Major Chords.” I mean, I used it as an example to talk to kids about how much I resented your ability! I’ve never, like, you know—I mean, I composed little tiny minuets when I was studying piano and stuff like “Minuet 4” in the style of Bach, but, you know—like, my mother thought that they were very good, but you know—I’ve never really written any songs. My brother’s a songwriter. I love his work, but it's kind of an alien territory for me, and that you would make something so beautiful, and stirring, and then so quickly—it just made it all the more upsetting and threatening and delightful! Is there anything that you remember about that experience of songwriting?
[21:43]
SHAYFER: Yeah, I think, well, it was a tricky time in my life, personally. And part of the reason I was doing that exercise was because I was having trouble writing. I was navigating just a tough spot. And I think that prompt [“love and time travel”] specifically seemed at first a bit silly. The prompt, at first seemed silly, because it was like a romance movie, you know. But I realized it was super relevant to my life at the time. So I dug in. I can’t really remember the process, but I know that it did happen fast, like super fast. And that was one of the songs that didn’t have any edits. I wrote the lyrics like a poem first. And so the music is pretty simple. I mean, there’s, you know, four chords, one of them being minor.
PETER: “Mostly Major.”
SHAYER: And I did [the music] after the [lyrics]. And the so the song is simple because of that. You know, it was more of a challenge to finish one song per day. And in this case, it was obviously a lot faster than that. But I don't always know or often know what a song is about until after it's done. So I knew that I was writing to prompt, but I didn't know what specifically I was writing about in terms of my own fears, and my understanding of love, and the possibility of regret, and letting go and all that stuff until after I listened to it, or after I wrote it. and then I understood what it was about in terms of my personal experience.
[23:21]
[VO]: I was gonna just crossfade into the song we’ve been talking about, but this is also the favorite song Alana Morales mentioned of their own accord in the episode intro, when they had no idea that Shayfer and I had talked about it during our previously recorded conversation. That lovely bit of synchronicity makes want to direct your attention to this sparkling gem. Once again, the prompt suggested by one of his fans was love and time travel. The song Shayfer composed, disquietingly quickly, is called “Mostly Major Chords.”
[23:58. “Mostly Major Chords” from HOPE AND A HAND GRENADE (2019) EP by Shayfer James]
[Verse 1]
She found me forty years from now
A shadow of myself
Her youth was black mascara
And red wine
We talked for hours
Of how I thought
I'd seen her somewhere else
And she was there beside me when I died[Chorus]
What's the point in counting
When a minute is a year
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time
What's the point in waiting
When you're gone
Before you're here
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time[Verse 2]
She found me seven years ago
In some piano bar
She told me I'd be paramount someday
She smiled the kind of smile
That builds a fire in the dark
She bought my gin
And then she slipped away[Chorus]
What's the point in counting
When a minute is a year
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time
What's the point in waiting
When you're gone
Before you're here
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time[Verse 3]
She found me twenty years ago
Outside my father's church
A little boy who fell and scraped his knee
She told me I was beautiful
And took away my hurt
And said that she'd forever wait for me[Chorus]
What's the point in counting
When a minute is a year
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time
What's the point in waiting
When you're gone
Before you're here
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time[Verse 4]
She found me any minute now
I've waited far too long
This rocking chair
Is wearing through the floor
She'll cry beside herself
To know I've written her this song
And be pleased
That it's in mostly major chords
[Chorus]
What's the point in counting
When a minute is a year
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time
What's the point in waiting
When you're gone
Before you're here
Every lover has their time
Every lover has their time
[28:12]
PETER: “She smiled the kind of smile/ That builds a fire in the dark.” Where does a line like that come from?
SHAYFER: Couldn't tell you.
PETER: Yeah.
SHAYFER: You know, it’s a tricky thing to talk about and to not sound pretentious when I say “I don't know.” And it seems silly. Like What do you mean you don’t know? I really don't. Because it's not like, Oh, is this a clever line? Sometimes, after I’ve written a song, I’ll go back and say, How can I make this better? How can I make this more succinct, or more playful, depending on what the vibe of the song is. In this case, there was none of that. So I don’t know. I just know that it felt good writing it.
PETER: I know I’ve mentioned to you before that that line in particular just stops me in my tracks, because one of the lines that I think I circled in my copy of Romeo and Juliet when I studied it again as a grad student: It’s when Romeo first sees Juliet across the ballroom. He says, “Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright!” So it’s very similar, and I don’t know if Shakespeare was ripping you off at that point! But it’s not like that kind of thing in your process that—I mean, you love poetry and read a certain amount of it, and listen to a certain amount of it, you know, but it’s not like that you read it for the purpose of having this store of figures or even meters or things. It’s really just, I think, to you, what sounds good to you, what feels good—
SHAYFER: —and what words feel good together. Because I’m honestly not really a well-read person. And I’ve had lots of conversations of like, Oh you know this writer …, and I don’t! I don’t and I used to be embarrassed by it, you know? Like, How could you not have read this person?
PETER: Do you tell people how lame your English teacher was?
SHAYFER: I do!
PETER: You know what, there’s a reason there’s a reason I just gave up on literature!
SHAYFER: Yeah, but you know, I was into horror and fantasy novels and things like that. But I don’t really know the classics. And I don’t really know the great poets or the great philosophers, so, you know, Oh, that's Nietzsche. That's so-and-so … I’ve read little bites. But I don’t draw from literature really. And I'm sure I've absorbed certain—you know, subconsciously, it's in there, whatever I've read. But yeah, I don't study other people's writing. Or, you know, I may use a prompt, but my prompt usually comes from visual art. Or other mediums, and not the written word, or music.
[31:17]
PETER: Even the diction. I forget which song it’s in, but it was [on the 2010 album] The Owl and the Elephant, but the word “bandolier.”
SHAYFER: Oh, that’s “Insincerely Yours.”
PETER: I was like, A bandolier! Of course, but what a weird word! Where does that come from? You know, it’s like from a World War I movie, or the Old West or something like that …
SHAYFER: And that process— I actually remember writing that song. And being very pleased with myself, I gotta say! Because that stanza, specifically: “ … the old engineer wears a gold bandolier/ And bewilders the horses with whistles and bells.” But it’s like, “I’ll spin you like an ancient carousel,” right?
PETER: Yeah.
SHAYFER: Right, so the engineer on the carousel is doing this sort of mischievous activity, you know, and I think I chose “bandolier” because it rhymed with “engineer” and I thought it was a cool image, you know. But I just remember thinking that that song was very silly—and being very, very pleased with myself when it was finished!
PETER: So you just added a singing saw to it, to finish it off.
SHAYFER: Yeah, obviously! As one does.
[32:38. From “Insincerely Yours” from THE OWL AND THE ELEPHANT (2010) album by Shayfer James]
I'll indulge in every story that you tell
While I swing you like an ancient carousel
Where the old engineer
Wears a gold bandolier
And bewilders the horses with whistles and bells
You'll be waiting for my love to keep you warm…
PETER: In a situation like that, does it just occur to you what “bandolier” rhymes with, or do you ever resort to like a rhyming dictionary or anything like that?
SHAYFER: I didn't for that. I do that, though. Yeah, I definitely check in RhymeZone, especially if I get stuck, you know, with rhymes. Usually, they're in there, they're in my brain. But sometimes I just feel I can't, in my word bank in my brain, find the word to say or what I think I'm trying to say at the moment.
PETER: I used this specific example—which is actually a kind of extraordinary one, “Mostly Major Chords,” in that you produced it so fast—it just tapped something, that suggestion, and you just kind of did it and produced it without real edits. But I think you have said that a more typical version of your process is that you'd get an idea for a lyric, or maybe a part of it, and then work on the music a little bit. And so then you'd have a song, the music of the song, and then fill in the rest of the lyrics. And it's different every time but is that a more typical process?
SHAYFER: Yeah, I think that's probably the most frequent. It is different every time, and also through stages of my creative life. So, at the beginning, really, it was all words first. It was really like writing poems in a journal. And then music would come. And then it became sort of a simultaneous thing. And then I would say, maybe around 2014 is when I think I found my actual real process.
PETER: So about five years into doing it regularly?
SHAYFER: Right, yeah, when I found that if I just listened to myself, like how thoughts were circulating, that song ideas would sort of drop in, you know, and just sort of happen. But it would always be that one word, or like, what is this phrase? And it could be inspired by the strangest thing, right? I could be walking down the street, and there's a buzz in the, you know, generator overhead, and that I'm hearing a tone. And for some reason, that makes me think of a thing. And then I have that single line. You know, it's hard to explain why it happens. But that generally inspires the process. Most recently, when I was working on the new album, it was very different, where the music all came first, and then I actually fully arranged everything, before even writing a word. And then I would play the music on repeat while I went for a walk, and then the words would come pretty rapidly. So it's always been different.
PETER: Interesting.
SHAYFER: But it's through stages of life, too. I think how I'm approaching the creative process is somehow tethered to where I am in my just being a human.
PETER: And I wonder, because in the past year or so you've been able to invest a different kind of time and energy now that you have pulled away from trying to hold down a full time job, in addition to being a touring musician and creator. You've been able to focus on doing music full time. I wonder if that's opened up some different possibilities. I’m thinking, for example, of the poet Lucille Clifton, who wrote at a certain point in her career very short poems. And when she was asked about it, she was like, This is the length of poem that I could remember while I was vacuuming, or doing chores around the house, because she was raising—I forget how many kids she had, but she was a busy mother in addition, so the rhythms of her life lent themselves to short poems at that particular period. I wonder if it's different for you because you just took a retreat for basically the better part of a month?
SHAYFER: Yeah, I think it's different. Because when I was, you know, working a full time job, or several, whatever it was, through the years, I was writing music in what felt like my spare time. And so when that all went away, I actually found myself with a lot of spare time. Too much spare time! And I didn’t, at the beginning, really know what to do with the time. And luckily, at the very beginning, when I left all that stuff, I was traveling a lot. So I didn't have a whole bunch of idle time. But when I got back from the U.S. tour for SHIPWRECK [2023 album] and the European stuff, and I got back to my apartment, I was like, What do I do? How do people do this full-time? And this is all that they do. I didn’t know what to do with the time. And what ended up happening is I found that I needed to go away for a month to write. Because day to day, I didn't have that urgency. I didn't have the compartment to write every day, like this is when this is when you power off your computer, you go get a drink, you come back, and you work on music—that was gone. And I sort of was flailing a little bit. So I've had to reframe my approach to creativity. Because of all the extra time I have, which sounds really weird, because you'd think it would just be delight, I can write all the time, but it's not possible for me to do that. Because very often when the idea comes, I’d be thinking about it all day while I was doing all these things. And once I closed my work computer, I rushed to the creative process, because it's been swirling in my head all day, you know, so there was an urgency that I needed to get whatever this idea was out—done. And so that's changed a lot.
PETER: Yeah, I'm thinking of the student athletes who say that they're actually most productive in terms of homework and efficiency during their season, because they know that they only have a certain amount of time to get it done. And so they're much more on-task, because it becomes scarce.
SHAYFER: That's very much the case.
PETER: I want to ask about the touring aspect. Because that's another thing that you've been able—you know, you used to make time to do it, you'd make arrangements when you were working for companies and stuff like that to be able to tour—but you've had some pretty remarkable national and international tours in the past couple of years. If you want to just give a little overview of where you've been, but if any of those experiences—because you know, we can say like you get this many 1000s or point-million streams per month, and that implies that there are people and you happen to know that there are people around the world, but to go to a different place and see your fans at a place that you've never been before and your music has reached them—
SHAYFER: Yeah, the touring. Well first of all, I love touring. I think it's not for everybody. I know for a fact that some people are just like, I hate this, or It's just a slog. You know, it's a lot. You know, it's exhausting. It just isn't for everybody. And if you love it, if you love performing enough that six-hour-a-day drives, and maybe not the best food or the best sleep is worth it for that hour on stage, and you get fired up and you want to keep going, you want to do it every day. But the ratio of time you're actually doing what you love to getting to the point that you could do the thing you love in front of people is a little bit off. Yeah, so I've toured. I did a national tour opening for Will Wood first, and those were solo gigs. And then, because of that, the booking agency that booked Will took me on as a client, and immediately they were able to get me gigs in Europe, which was amazing. And when I opened for Will, I didn't realize that I had fans that would come to shows, or that were even necessarily eager to see me. I kind of thought the streaming was a little bit of a fluke, like it was on playlists somehow. And those numbers were rising—
PETER: I see.
SHAYFER: —those numbers were rising because they were somehow associated with these playlists. I hadn't quite figured it out yet. But I didn't know it was like a bunch of these folks knew my music and were excited to see me. And that was true in Berlin, and Warsaw, and London, and throughout the UK, and Sydney, Australia, you know, meeting these fans, and realizing the similarities that they had to each other around the world, their interests in literature, and the things that they wanted to talk about. And also looking out and seeing them, and I said this to them onstage—learning that they were very much the reflection of what I was at that age: the way they dress, the clothes they wear, the things that they're interested in. It's the same, you know, albeit at a different time, but it is fundamentally the same. And it's kind of wild to look back and see that like, Oh, this is why this music makes sense to them. But yeah, so I've toured the U.S., I've toured through the EU, and the UK. And I did one show in Australia, and a couple of shows in Canada.
[42:39]
PETER: Well that’s one thing about going into the singer-songwriter life, right, is that you do think about touring, and there are artists, through some combination of talent, but also a lot of luck, who get to do it in their late teens, early 20s and so forth, like at a much younger period—or I'm sorry, a little bit, a little bit younger period of their life—
SHAYFER: Yeah. I’m 900.
PETER: That's true. Spiritually, you are Methuselah. How do you think about the difference? You know, because probably that was something that you thought about when you were starting out. Like, Wouldn't it be great to be able to tour? And you certainly played in different places. But as far as going across the country or going internationally, that's something that's really opened up recently. Is there something that you learned having the benefit of the interceding decades?
SHAYFER: Oh, yeah. Because I think I am so grateful for it. And every, every moment feels like a gift. Every show that I've played feels, first of all, that I've earned it, because I've worked really hard at my craft for a pretty long time. And so I feel really proud of myself. But I think that if it had happened in my 20s, when most people, like you said, when that happens for songwriters when they're younger, I think I'd be much more cavalier about it. With this, I feel like I've done a lot of hard work, I earned it, and it's actually humbling more than it is like, Oh, I'm great at this, you know. I'm more like, I can't believe I get to do this! After all this time and at a time of my life when most people would be hanging it up, or being told to hang it up. Luckily, in my life, no one has ever told me to hang it up. And I've had moments where I've felt like maybe I should, but I love it too much to ever do that. So at this moment, it's just like, from what I've learned through my adult life, you know, my perspective on the importance of doing it right and doing it with my whole heart, and the gratitude I feel, versus it being something that I can feel cocky about or feel like I'm better than anybody else. I think it's different.
[45:01]
PETER: Could you talk a little bit about interacting with the fans? You give very careful attention on platforms like social media, like whenever I’ll check out a video of yours, even when it’s something that has just dropped, like one of these official visualizers, maybe for “Cavalry” was one I was looking at, and looking at the comments, people will be like, “Shayfer’s so cool! He answers our questions and responds to everyone,” so I know that there’s a certain amount of online fan interaction, but I also had the opportunity to see you in Toronto last summer, so I had the chance to see not just your performance, which was outstanding, and the way you connected in terms of what is sometimes called “patter,” you know, setting songs up and connecting with the audience, but then I saw the line of people coming up to get merch, to buy it, you know, to take a little piece of the Shayfer James experience home with them, but also just to talk with you and shake your hand, or get an autograph, or get a selfie, get a picture with you and stuff like that, the experience of meeting these people in real life, as they say?
SHAYFER: What was the question?
PETER: I don't know—you tell me! I'm not real good at this, frankly. I'm not good at this job! So it's one thing to say like, there are people in Berlin listening to music, to go, Wow, these people know the lyrics and so forth. But then when you actually get a chance to interact with them, you know, what's that like? I think I was helping sell merch or set up or something [at the Toronto show]. So I just overheard some of the testimony of kids saying like, This song gave me the strength to have a conversation about coming out, or This was my soundtrack of my first date, or this relationship or whatever. They have these little examples that are huge in terms of what your music has meant in their life. I think you've already said that it was a humbling experience to go out and tour. But is there anything as far as actually meeting some of the people that are driving these numbers?
[47:39]
SHAYFER: I mean, yeah, they're just so lovely! I have yet to meet a fan that isn't just incredibly lovely to talk to, and they share, you know. And I think some are more forthcoming and eager to share their stories than others, obviously. But I think I learn from them the impact that the music actually has. Just seeing stream numbers, [all I know is] Oh, people are listening. But when you hear someone's story, in person, and you see that emotion in their face of how much it meant to them, or like you said, my first date or something like that, you learn the importance of creating. It reminds me of those songs from my childhood, you know, or not even just my childhood—all the time. You know, the things that shape you and shape your experiences: that soundtrack. That I'm that soundtrack for these people is mind-blowing to me.
PETER: Music just hits at such a deep place. It's a line I've seen attributed to Elvis Costello, but I've also seen it attributed to other people. (I like Elvis Costello more than most people, so I usually pretend that he said it, but I have not done the research on it.) The line is Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. So I think by extension, podcasting about music probably falls into a similar trap. It’s not news to say that music affects us at profound depths, you know, that there are people, for example, who would not be persuaded to go to church at any other time of year, but the fact that they get to hear Christmas carols or sing Christmas carols that remind them or take them back. It just operates at these at these places. Along these lines, when you create something and put it out in the world, you necessarily don't have control over what people do with it. There's something in the English teacher biz that we call the intentional fallacy, which is to say [fallaciously, that] the persona or perspective that an author may take in a given poem or play is necessarily what the author intended and necessarily what the author thinks. And so you may put an idea out there, kind of playfully or insincerely, that somebody may take literally, or they may just misconstrue a song entirely. And you’re like, That's not what I meant. But as an artist, you don't have the option of attaching a little 3x5 card to it and saying, like, This is what I meant by this song, right? Like, This is what this song really means. That’s part of the power of art. Having said all that, are there places where you look at how people, or some people, interpret a song, and you're like, Whoa! Wut-oh! I don't know what to do about that! Have you ever felt the need to clarify something or to say, Maybe I won’t play that song for a while?
[51:03]
SHAYFER: Yeah: “Mercy Down.” So I wrote “Mercy Down,” I guess it was probably 2017, I don't know. He Who Shall Not Be Named had recently come into the Office of the President. I wrote it about America at that moment. And there's a bridge part where I talk about a “tyrant on the throne and a clown on every screen.” And what I'm referring to in that is him. And then also the “clown on every screen,” the televisions and social media sort of the zapping our attention, and we're not experiencing things for what they really are, you know, this was also probably the the beginning of the Fake News era, you know, where it was like every—
PETER: “Alternative facts.”
SHAYFER: Yeah, like he was calling things “fake news,” But then, you know, all these, yes, “alternative facts” were bubbling up. We didn't know what was true anymore. And I have this line, “low-grade fever dream,” which was just a phrase that I thought was interesting about how I felt society was existing at the time.
PETER: And something about “telling us to stay at home.”
SHAYFER: Yeah, it's “compelling us to stay at home in this low-grade fever dream.” And so, I stood by that song. And then there's the chorus, I say, “pick your weapons up and throw your mercy down.” I'm not a violent person. I don't advocate for war, I'm anti-war. But so the “weapons” for me have always been love, and empathy and thoughtfulness. But I sometimes believe—
PETER: And probably art too, right?
SHAYFER: And art. Yeah, anything that I feel is creative rather than destructive, but I use sometimes this heavy imagery, you know. It’s just the way it comes out, and I don't want to edit myself too much. So, you know, zoom ahead to the COVID era, where not only were people were, like, I predicted—Oh, oh, he saw it coming!
PETER: Were you Q? Was that you?
SHAYFER: Right, you know, but then I got a message … several times, but one message I remember clearly. A fan was having a conversation with their mother: their mother listened to the song and made the assumption that I was MAGA and that I was anti-vax, that I was of that group. And it was because in the current context, those words meant something different. And it completely changed the perspective of the song—and for me singing it, because suddenly I was thinking about it differently when I was on stage. And I was like, you know, This feels weird singing, because in this new era, in this post-COVID era, these words mean something different. How are they to know that I wrote it six years ago? They don’t! So I had to put it in my in the YouTube video description. It says: I wrote this song in 2017. This is pre-COVID pre-all of this stuff … And I think I even say, I am not pro-Trump. I'm not— any of this stuff … you know? And it shook me a little bit. And so I actually do change the lyrics somewhat when I sing it live now.
PETER: How?
SHAYFER: I'll do it past-tense, and I sort of change the words to make it clear, you know, that I'm not singing about COVID. I’m not anti-vax, I'm not pro-war.
PETER: That’s a relief, because those were going to be my follow-up questions.
SHAYFER: Yeah, exactly.
PETER: Okay. Cool, cool.
[54:50. From original version of “Mercy Down” from HOPE AND A HAND GRENADE (2019) EP by Shayfer James]
Yeah, it’s getting biblical now
Yeah, it’s getting mythical now
You better pick your weapons up
And throw your mercy, throw your mercy down
There’s a tyrant on the throne
And a clown on every screen
Compelling us to stay at home
In this low-grade fever dream
But we’re gathering our strength
We’re becoming less afraid
There is hope for us in
This unholy mess we’ve made
Hey! It’s getting biblical now
[55:53]
JULIA OLFF [pledge break]: Hello, this is Julia Olff, a health educator, a parent of two former students of the alternative high school program Peter led for many years, and someone just fascinated by how humans learn. When Peter first invited listeners to make a monthly contribution to Point of Learning, I signed up right away—easy decision. I knew I would be taken on a stimulating educational journey of ideas, and ways of engaging learners. I’m especially happy to share this episode because I know it was recorded in Shayfer James’ home studio in Jersey City, a city of many cultures I lived in recently and have fond memories of. If I had to pick a favorite episode of Point of Learning—kind of hard to do—I would say that “This Is Radio (Dammit!)” with Bill Siemering, an early broadcaster on National Public Radio, and the recent episode “Of Surpassing Worth,” on the visionary educator Marcus Foster are some of my favorites that have stayed with me. If you appreciate the carefully curated ideas from a wide range of guests that Peter sends out into the world, think about contributing once a month—just what you might spend on a cup of coffee. There’s also a way to make a one-time donation, if you prefer that. Just click the link on the show page. Thanks, and back to the show!
[57:09]
SHAYFER: I think that songwriting is how I learn about myself. That it’s like how I unearth—and I talk about the “shadow work” that the songwriting is for me—I don't know if it's a relatively new term in therapy, but I'm doing the shadow work through music, like I'm digging into the dark, I am learning. I'm learning how to heal, and I'm learning about how I engage with other people and all these things about myself. And self-awareness, which I think is so important—it's such an important thing to learn, and to refine over the course of your life. And I know that self-awareness is tough to teach. It's not something you can just teach somebody to do, and it requires thoughtful learning. And I've found that that's why I urge everyone to create. If you can sing, you should. If you can write a song, you should. It doesn't matter if anybody would ever want to listen to it: that's irrelevant. I think that if nobody listened to my music—and for a while there, for most of the time that I was writing music, very few people did. But that didn't stop me from doing it. And I would never stop doing if everybody who listened went away. Because it's part of my learning process. Like how I learn to be better at being a person, how I learn to communicate, to share my feelings outside of the creative space. And so I think creativity is a huge part of that. A lot of people maybe don't create because they think they shouldn't, or they don't have enough talent. And I remember talking to the students at Project ’79 when we did the songwriting thing, and encouraging this, and I stand by this: if you can, you should create, because you could learn so much about other people and yourself.
[58:55]
PETER: I feel like we were even more radical than that, though. Because we said: Everybody can write.
SHAYFER: Yeah.
PETER: Everybody can sing.
SHAYFER: Yes.
PETER: Now, you won't necessarily cross the street to hear just anybody sing, but there's something that opens up—you know, it's like how some people have hangups about dancing and so forth, but there's something to dancing, to singing that you don't have to do it well to realize some of the benefits of doing it. You're opening yourself up to that, right?
SHAYFER: Yeah. And I am very self-conscious when it comes to something like dancing.
PETER: I’ve noticed, buddy!
SHAYFER: And I have to learn to not be. I have to teach myself not to be, and my admiration for people who aren't, who are comfortable in their bodies enough to just dance in the way that they do. I admire those people because it's a lesson I haven't figured out yet. I haven't learned how to do that.
[59:59]
PETER: Is there anything that you've gotten from taking on, in some song or another, a particular persona that's a little bit more extreme than you would necessarily say something or put something? We were just talking about the example of “weapons,” right? Like, you don't normally talk like that. You don’t go to the barista and say like, Do you have any weapons? I need to cut into this bagel? That’s not your normal—there is a kind of poetry and intensity, a charge to the lyrics and certainly to the music that's different. Is there anything liberating about taking a more extreme stance?
SHAYFER: Yeah, I think so. I love extreme art. I like things feeling visceral, and so I like creating in that way. I like clever things. Frankly, I like dark things. Even though I'm not for violence, I think I've always been interested in how violence and that imagery is woven into lessons and woven into art, whether it be horror films or sci-fi, or basically any art form. I’m interested in that.
PETER: But I think when you're talking about learning something from the process of writing a song, that sometimes there can be maybe a level of artifice that maybe opens something up. I guess what I'm wondering is if it's just like taking a kind of different perspective, more intense than you otherwise would, and then there's something that happens and allows you to explore something, because it's not quite the way you would normally talk about it.
SHAYFER: Yeah, that’s true. And I definitely do that, whether it's intentional or not. I'm not actively thinking about doing it. And so when people started talking about my music online, like on Reddit—I tell the story sometimes when I'm at shows, you know, somebody just tore me apart on Reddit and called me an “Edgelord,” which means, for your daily listeners, somebody who just talks a big game about all this terrible stuff, but really isn’t that—is kind of full of shit. And I was like, Well, yeah. Yeah. Because I don't—I've never killed someone, and I don't want to kill someone! And I don't treat people in some of the ways—when I make my jokes and my sarcasm in my music, I don't actually treat people poorly. I am not a villain. Sometimes people are like, Oh, this is music for villains. I’m like, I am not a villain. I don't know any villains, except the ones that I see on the news, you know? So yeah, it's cool, but it's not intentional. And I can't put it any better than you put it, which is it does give definitely give me access to different things to write that way. But I don't go in with the intention of writing in that way.
[1:03:34]
PETER: I know that you have plenty of friends living who are visual artists, and so because of that, I'm going to say: Who are artists who are no longer living, but visual artists that are interesting to you, or even styles of visual art? Just because you mentioned the visual art that's sometimes an inspiration for you.
SHAYFER: Yeah. My favorite visual artist is Magritte.
PETER: Okay. René Magritte.
SHAYFER: I just, yeah, I could just I could stare at his work all day. I just love it. I love the use of color, and I love surrealism. You know, I don't love all surrealism either, you know. Some of it, I look at and I’m like, This is— What is— What is this? I am not a person that goes to the MoMA and says, “Look how extraordinary this stuff is!” I look at some of it and I'm like, What is— Whose nephew is this that they got their shit on a wall at a museum? This is terrible! It doesn't make any sense to me. Right? So that's not to say like— I have very specific tastes in what I like. I know that art is totally subjective. We just came out of the conversation that If you can make art— Everyone can, and everybody should. But it doesn't mean that I'm going to enjoy it or understand it.
PETER: Of course!
SHAYFER: And I'm sure that those works that I think are ridiculous, somebody stands in front of them and goes, This is life-changing for me. But I love Dalí. I think surrealism is my favorite. But it's probably like 20th-century, that vibe, you know 1900 to like maybe the 1970s. There’s a bunch of artists in there, those two being my favorite. But Magritte is—if I could have art all over my home that I could afford, that's the person I would have the most work from.
[1:05:47]
[VO]: That’s it for today’s show! So if you’re the one hoarding the Magritte’s painting “The Son of Man” in your private collection, I know a worthy artist you could lend it to for a few months! Thanks so much to Shayfer James for sitting down to talk. If you’re thinking you might like to catch him perform live, he just may be coming to a city near you! Throughout April 2024 he’ll be playing Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cleveland, Philly, D.C., Albany (I’m going to that one), Boston, New York City, and then on May 7th he’ll land at the Macbeth in London. For tickets, venues, and dates, visit shayferjames.com/tour, or just click the link in the show notes. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for providing intro and outro—oh, you know that part. If you’d like to hear more Project ’79, the amazing alternative education program referred to several times in this show that is still going strong in its 45th anniversary year, of course I’ve got a full episode for that, from way back in 2018, and it’s linked on the show page. Also linked are the episodes featuring Bill Siemering and Marcus Foster that Julia Olff flagged as two of her faves in her gracious promotional appearance, so check those out if you haven’t yet. Finally, thank you for your support of this show in any way you do it! Hey, have you never rated or reviewed a podcast in your podcast app of choice? May today be the day you find yourself at the Point of Learning! Only takes a second to rate: 5 stars. This podcast, perilously close to its 50th new episode in just seven years, does take a while to produce because it’s written, recorded, edited, mixed, and mastered with love by me here in Sunny Buffalo, New York. I’m Peter Horn and I’ll be back at you soon with the 50th Episode Auracular—that’s right, it’ll be a spectacular, but for your ears, and it will be all about what and how and why we learn. See you then! I mean, talk to you then. (You know what I mean.)
